Greenland Shark

The Greenland Shark, also known as a Gurry Shark or a Grey Shark washed up our shores this morning. It was found this morning at daylight on the beach at Dunstan Steads/Embelton.

I received a phone call from my crewman Andy telling me that a Shark was on the beach, so I jumped into the van with my camera and my trusty dog Bud and drove across to the site. It only takes about 10 minutes to get the but it felt like ages as I had never seen a shark for years was getting really excited.

It's a lovely walk down to the beach and you pass through the golf course past Dunstanburgh Castle then onto the beach and their it was dead on the beach.

Just by the look of it, it had not been dead for long as some of the blood was dripping from it and just a slight smell. I don't know how it died but nothing looked wrong with it. No marks to say it had been hit by a boat. No rope marks or cuts, just one of its eye's had popped out. I'm hopeing it was natural causes but what on earth was it doing in our waters as it's from the North Atlantic Ocean around Greenland and Iceland.

I have to confess that I did touch it and it was really smooth from it's head to tail but the other way it was rough. It felt a little bit like leather. It's teeth were very small and they were facing the same way. As I touched them they were very blunt but saying that I still would not like to have my hand there if it was alive.

I felt really sorry for it to be honest. It looked sad and I am praying it did die of natural causes.

I also meet two people from the National Trust and they said that they dragged it up the beach so it did not get washed away as it was going to Newcastle to be frozen.

A local farmer that had been surfing came along to give us a hand to get the shark of the beach and into a van so they could take it away. He came up with a great idea and it worked a treat but I was very surprised how light it was. Just by looking at it I thought it would be the same weight as a cow seal but I was very wrong.  I think we were all pleased it was light as it might have been a bit of a struggle getting it to the van.  We also took a guess that it was 9ft long.

Hopefully I will find out what happened to this wonderful creature but for now here are some pictures.